Lido’s head of institutional relations, Kean Gilbert, recommended that firms post ETH as collateral and borrow against it to pursue returns higher than passive staking — a practical nudge that pushes treasuries toward leveraged yield strategies and more complex counterparty exposures.
According to reporting, Gilbert framed borrowing against ETH as a way to amplify returns relative to pure staking, signaling a shift in how large ETH holders might manage corporate treasuries and staking programs. Cointelegraph reported the recommendation and placed it against a broader industry debate about staking, liquid staking and ETF competition.
How the move unfolded
The suggestion did not appear in isolation: treasury operators already mix native staking and liquid staking products, and some firms derive a material portion of staking rewards from liquid staking — one example named in coverage, Sharplink Gaming, derived about 33% of its rewards from liquid staking. US-listed staked-ETH products have proliferated as the ETF market evolved; the reporting lists REX‑Osprey’s planned September 2025 launch, Grayscale’s staked-ETH product suite, and BlackRock’s ETF that began trading March 12, 2026. Those developments frame Gilbert’s advice as an operational option for treasuries seeking to close the yield gap with headline ETF products.
What this event revealed
The arithmetic driving the recommendation is narrow: headline staking and ETF yields sit in a tight band. Grayscale’s ETHE showed 2.26% net staking rewards as of April 6, while raw ETH token staking yields were reported at 2.56% as of April 2. Native ETH staking is roughly 2.72% annually according to industry data, illustrating that simple staking yields do not leave much room for wide margin between passive and active strategies. Staking Rewards provides the native staking benchmark that puts those figures in context.
Not everyone agrees that treasuries must chase higher yields. As noted in coverage, Jimmy Xue of Axis argued that some ether treasury firms may not need to exceed ETF headline yields because their holdings can trade at a market NAV premium (mNAV), altering the return calculus.
Why credit teams care
This recommendation turns a portfolio decision into a credit and collateral question. Two verified points are central: ETH can be posted as collateral for borrowing to generate higher yields, and liquid staking tokens permit firms to deploy ETH into DeFi while keeping a staking exposure. Both facts expand the universe of collateralized strategies lenders must underwrite.
When borrowers pledge ETH or liquid staking tokens and then lever those positions, lenders take on extra channels of value and volatility: price movement in ETH, basis between liquid staking tokens and staked balances, and the interaction with ETF price/distribution dynamics. ETF competition — and its influence on headline yield figures — increases the incentive for borrowers to adopt leverage, which raises concentration and rehypothecation questions for credit teams.
Why the episode mattered for lenders
Assetify judgment: Gilbert’s advice and the surrounding ETF/staking yield landscape revealed a simple truth — the margin available from staking alone is thin, and that arithmetic is nudging treasury managers toward borrowing and liquid-staking strategies that change collateral risk profiles. For crypto-backed lenders, the implication is not hypothetical: underwriting must now fold in the combined risks of leveraged staking exposures, the liquidity and peg behavior of liquid staking tokens, and the possibility that ETF pricing dynamics (including mNAV effects) will alter recoveries. Lenders should treat borrow-against-staked-ETH strategies as structurally different from straight ETH loans, and price credit, haircuts and covenants accordingly.
